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Posted by Doug Clifford on July 05, 1999 at 11:07:56:
In Reply to: Removing old photos from backing posted by Marcia McChesney on July 05, 1999 at 08:12:39:
: I have many photographs of my
: grandfather sailing and they are
: mounted on cardboard. Is there a
: way to remove them from their
: backing without destroying the
: picture itself?
Hello Marcia,
You haven't provided me with enough information. "Mounted on
cardboard" could be good or bad, depending on the cardboard
and how they were mounted. The "cardboard" could be
some acid-free museum stock, designed to prolong the life of the
photograph, or it could be laden with chemicals which will
eventually cause the photograph to deteriorate. The same goes for
the mounting method - the photo could be dry-mounted, meaning a
piece of adhesive tissue was placed between the photo and the
cardboard, and then the "sandwich" was placed in a dry
mount press and heat was applied, melting the dry mount tissue
and bonding the photo to the backing. On the other hand, some
glue could have been used and in most cases, this was NOT a good
method and eventually the glue will cause damage to the
photograph.
In the absence of a compelling reason to separate the photo from the backing, I'd leave well enough alone. The photos will probably not escape the procedure without some damage. Old photographic emulsion is very brittle and can crack.
Before you experiment with any of the pictures, I would take
them to a custom photo lab and have copy negatives made of each
one. There will be some slight loss of image quality and
"life" because the copy negatives will be one
generation further away from the originals, so have prints made
from the copy negatives and decide if you are satisfied with the
quality. Although I'm not recommending this, you might take your
least favorite image (after a copy negative has been made) and
take the mounted picture and soak it in a tray of room
temperature water. Don't hurry the process, let the picture and
cardboard backing thoroughly soak and perhaps the backing will
separate from the photograph. Then take the photograph and place
it in a photographic blotter book (about $15-$20) which usually
has leaves of acid-free blotter paper separated by leaves of
waxed paper. Put the emulsion (image side) against the waxed
paper and the back of the image against a blotter page. Then
weight the entire blotter book with heavy
books and allow the photo to dry naturally, several days. Old
photographic paper has a strong tendency to curl and so I doubt
the dried photograph will be perfectly flat. Also wet
photographic emulsion is very fragile and can be easily damaged
with a fingernail or anything sharp.
I'm going to refer this question to our resident expert, Dave
Mishkin, who owns Just Black and White in Portland, Maine.
http://www.maine.com/photos/ He specializes in copying and
restoring old photographs for museums, genealogists, and those
who want to preserve treasured memories.
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